143900-wildstar-ftp-too-generous
Content ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- To me anyway that's the sign when a FTP model does completely right in my book. When players don't feel like they /need/ to buy things,instead rather cause they /want/ to buy things. Nothing says unfun more then making players feel like they have no choice but to buy cash shop things. Since SWTOR was mentioned in this thread I'll chime in on that as the perfect example of FTP done wrong to me. Its a great game but it pretty much strong arms you into either paying a subscription or spending a lot on the cash shop if a player wants to do more outside the main story quest. Ryuujin made a good point as well, the cash shop is still in its early stages and they need to figure out and see what players are purchasing the most so they can build it up more. Me personally, am happy with things. I'm a subscriber and have also picked up a few things here and there on the cash shop. | |} ---- ---- ---- Oh I fully intend to but my little level 12 self with 9 gold to her name isn't even going to be able to do that for awhile. :) Meanwhile ASAP I will be subbing the old fashioned way. | |} ---- ---- Dont forget the kitty cat pet for every alt! That is a must have! MUST HAVE I TELL YOU! | |} ---- As long they got good products on the market. It will draw customers attention and many loves cosmetics stuff if the visuals are nice. Christmas, Halloween, Easter or Summer outfits? Sold. Hover bicycle or other new mounts? Sold. Draken / Aurin maids or butlers for housing? Sold. Did I just blurt out possibility future cash shop items :huh:? Sold. | |} ---- ---- Just to nitpick...i think their SWTOR's wording on xp gains for sub vs f2p is a little confusing or at least i think they are using specific wording so that the term actually sounds worse then it does. They say reduced XP as an F2P but i think all that happened is that the normal xp rate back when the game was not f2p just became the xp rate for f2p and subs then got a 25% boost to their xp gains. However if you think about it changing the terms probably worked to Biowares benefit. Ask people what their reaction is to hearing reduced xp (f2P) + regular xp (sub) versus regular xp (f2p) + boosted xp (sub). They hear reduced xp and they think eww yuck i dont want that i'm gonna go sub right now hehe. I thought about testing it a few months back but i wasnt that worried about it. However i did level a crapton of characters as a sub before F2P was a think and i always hit certain levels at the same place since i always followed the same routine. Once i became and F2P and i got that "reduced xp" i was still hitting the same locations as before at the same levels. I dont mean "close enough its the same level" i mean exactly at the same level at exactly the same place/quest hub. Edited October 18, 2015 by wildstarnewbie | |} ---- Even if that were the case that doesn't negate the myriad of restrictions that SWTOR places on free to play players. Unable to color match armor. Cannot hide head slot. Certain races (Chiss at the least) unavailable. And those are just the things I can list off the top of my head in addition to the things I listed before. SWTOR has a very restrictive and, I would almost say, abusive model for free to play. I've enjoyed the game in the past and I STILL enjoy the game now especially considering some of the humorous character concepts my friends and I have come up with, but we all admit that the game simply is not fun unless you're a subscriber. | |} ---- I *was* only nitpicking the point about reduced xp and not anything else. | |} ---- ---- So much this. I've been a player of SWTOR since it's beta (what can I say, I like betas, i'm in a lot of them) and i've played on and off since. When they put the free to play model on the PTR for the subscribers to check out even we complained it was too bad. What you have now is what they improved on so imagine how bad it was before we complained. 1 action bar, no sprint at all and so many pay walls it wasn't worth being a free to play player at all. It's still a struggle now but far better than it was. Still barely worth playing without a sub though. Rift got it about right and this one is pretty good. The problem Wildstar would have if it was less generous than it is now is people would walk away. It's not a massive game and it already tanked once. If it had millions of players behind it then they would get away with stripping the free to play model back a bit and reducing some features but that, on top of the recent issues, on top of it already having a bad rep would tank it again. A game shouldn't have to force people to pay to enjoy it like SWTOR does. People should want to pay on the games merits. It isn't like it was when free to play first hit the genre, now there are hundreds of thousands of MMO's to chose from. If a player doesn't like what is happening to one game they will move on to another. Then we have players that have come here for a break from their "main" MMO. If things were too forced here into paying they would have gone straight back. Carbine doesn't have the luxury of a big name game or reputation to rely on in order to get people paying. They need to bring them in and convince the to stay. Pay walls wouldn't do that, nice extras and cosmetics would. | |} ---- Wait till everybody wants to do a guild on an arena team, you pretty much need to pay or someone (CREED) has to do it. I feel like this game is fair in this regard, i mean maybe you were screwed too much by all the other f2p games that you have developed stockholm syndrome and you are now missing that someone screws you over and over... But also there is something else you are failing to see, rerolling rune slots and adding rune slots can be done EASILY with no RNG whatsoever with service tokens.... so you may want to hold on to your "too generous" thoughts. | |} ---- Don't forget you have to BUY your action hotbars | |} ---- ---- And, of course, this. People joke about TF2 being a hat simulator, but it's those hats that have kept TF2 raking in money for nearly half a decade. Edited October 18, 2015 by Cantatus | |} ---- ---- I agree and I noticed this in f2p beta too. None of the costumes look good enough to me to want to spend money on. | |} ---- I hope they can come up with some halloween design costumes like something similar to what GW2 offered. | |} ---- ---- ---- That's kind of defeating the point don't ya think :P? It's free to play after all :blink:. | |} ---- I think that if Wildstar had the phrase "Star Wars" in its title, it might be able to get away with SWTOR's F2P model that basically invites you in and then almost immediately tries to force you to subscribe. Since Wildstar doesn't have the phrase "Star Wars" in its title, it cannot get away with SWTOR's F2P model--which makes the F2P model they're pursuing a far more likely one to succeed. | |} ---- Might be Free-to-play but Devs need money in order to continue said game and earn a living. It shows disrespect if you are just a free loader. | |} ---- I've spent $40 in the store just on Service Tokens and Fortune Coins, Im pretty sure they'll do fine with the model they have. | |} ---- Hehehe just playing devil's advocate :P. | |} ---- hehe that's always fun :P | |} ---- ---- A good way of seeing on how wildstar is progressing in its revenue is looking at the cred market Ever since f2p the price of cred has halved from 20 plat to 10 plat which means more ppl are buying and undercutting each other so as to sell theirs first So my rough estimate they have probably doubled their revenue :) | |} ---- Very few people pay to support devs, they pay if they can afford it or if they feel like they are getting their moneys worth. Quite a lot of people don't pay "because the devs need it". The devs need to give reasons for us to pay. With the lag issues and bugs irritating some people they have no incentive to pay. I haven't paid anything since i've been back for 2 reasons. 1. There is absolutely nothing in the cash shop I want to spend any money on. 2. I'm not paying a sub for a game in this state. Until the game is pretty much issue free there is no reason for me to pay anything. I don't pay just to "support the devs", that's not how business works. The devs need to make me want to pay which they aren't doing yet. | |} ---- ---- a completely free user still contributes to the ecconomy and overall population, making non free users wanting to stay. Some people might not be in a financial situation to spend money o Wildstar at the moment for example, but they might be buying CREDD, fullfilling buy and sell orders and being very active in their community :P | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- Path of exile did it, they only have cosmetics, storage which they give you plenty for free, and exp potions, and they are an indie company. Edited October 18, 2015 by Xorian | |} ---- It seems like with an F2P model they have to find the right balance. If you want whats yourself then you'll only worry about if the F2P model is good for you. If you want whats good for the game you'll look at whats good for yourself and the game. Too generous and not enough stuff being charged for and you might not make enough money. Too restrictive (swtor) and charge for every little thing then it wont be popular but it may make a lot of money. I think people will be able to tell the next quarterly report or next one after if the new play model is doing any good. I actually dont mind the swtor f2p model so much. I'm an old sub player and i bought the game when it had a box price. But if i were to get into the game now the way i figure is the download is free so i would add up the cost for all the trivial account wide unlocks like hide helm, unify colors, artifact weapons, action bars etc as just consider them the equivalent of paying for a box price. Technically you *can* buy those things in game with credits. And technically as an f2p with only 200k credit limit per toon you can buy those things even if they are priced over 200k with escrow limit upgrades (also purchaseable with credits). Technically its possible but realistically its a huuuuge pita. Trying to get from 200k credits to 2mil temp increase using escrow upgrades will end up costing you a lot. I'd have to check auction house prices but it wouldnt surprise me if trying to go from 200k to 1mil credits to buy an item for 999k ends up costing you 2mil overall. But those credit prices on those items are controlled by players and i think that some of them may have forgetten who will buy those unlocks. Because i looked yesterday and I saw cosmetic unlocks like hide helm and unify colr for 1mil - 1.8mil credits and hotbar unlocks going for 800k credits. Well maybe they havent forgotten who buys those unlocks, maybe its cause those sub players now expect f2p players to at least buy 1 month sub time grind up the required credits to buy the unlocks and once they have the unlocks they can stop paying the sub fee and they will revert to preferred status, have a bunch of unlocks and a 350k credit limit. And with 12xp (which is about to end) it used to take no time at all to reach level cap and getting credits is super easy. I was spamming a bunch of instances a few months ago with my 55's and i was f2p. But credits were starting to pile up so fast that i had to redistribute the credits every so often by sending it to my alts so that we all had 350k. This was all happening too within the span of a few days/weeks. But anyways i think if WS needs to change what it charges for then they shouldnt follow what SWTOR, LOTRO or STO did. Those are games with a much more popular IP and as annoying as the trivial unlocks may be i bet people would be willing to get them as long as they are able to play as Jedi, Sith and Bounty Hunters and whatnot. WS might have to look at F2P models for games that arent based off of major IPs. Like Rift, TSW or whatever else is out there. They would have to see how games like that are able to make an F2P model work and then apply that here. If they try to charge for hotbars in this game i dont think it would work here. It worked for SWTOR...but i dont think it would work here. | |} ----